Owly wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:Owly wrote:Last one one this - and has to be brief because of time and so primarily directing you back to the argument outlined ... is it not net impact that's important? And is it not possible to be huge at one end and give it all back (and more?) at the other. Could you not be say a slightly more durable version of what Manute Bol may have been (data is limited), be a monster on one end be perhaps a little worse than you are good on the other, be a say ... a slightly below league average player, a lower-end, below average starter (or say it's even, and they're league average, and merely below average starter)
Is it "probable" that a team's best player on one end is that type of extreme ... no. But if it is possible then I think the absolute type statement is wrong.
To me it's like the (basic level version of) "you can't win with a center as poor/middling on D as Jokic" (or indeed "you can't win with a center as good on offense as Jokic") because it isn't something likely to happen to a given team (because in both instances you are extraordinarily unlikely to have a center as offensively good as Jokic - and in the more serious version, are failing to account for net impact).
To me the defense offered to this seems to be that "Yes, but you "nuke" it by keeping your team from being that good." ... but you can win (a title) with one lower-end or below average starter and/or one starter playing at that level.
I think that looking at what makes a team good makes sense and corrects some misconceptions where volume scorers/dynamic "stars" were over-credited. I'd just argue against isolating value in that area rather than net contribution.
Net impact is of course what truly matters.
To the question of whether it's literally impossible for someone to be...
a) the best defensive player
b) and the guy who plays the most
b) on the best defensive team
c) that's also the best overall team
d) but he's a net negative overall
and I must add:
e) on a team that literally is bad at offense
I certainly won't say it's literally impossible, but I think we have to be asking ourselves a) how that would come about in practice, and b) how likely that any particular situation in the past could be best explained by that.
I think sometimes people feel like it's less of a sin to be wrong because you leave something in the default setting than it is if you actively try to assess things for yourself and are wrong. And if anything, I think the opposite. Even if on average putting more thought leads to the exact same over accuracy, the thought you put into it is worthwhile.
But, truly speaking, I do think we can do better than the default setting on average if we go about it the right way, and if I didn't, then I probably wouldn't bother to try to think about history much at all. Instead, I think about it quite a bit in many domains with much the same process I use to go about understanding the world with scientific bent.
Okay, back to the specific topic at hand, let's start with this in mind:
If he's having a net negative impact out there, and the coach is insisting on playing him more than all of his other players, that's a major mistake by the coach, right? And this is the coach of the champion team we're talking about, so how is his team succeeding the way it does? Whatever the answer is to that question, I think it's got to be really interesting.
Last, the Jokic point is a good one. I'll piggy back on something you said:
Not only is it unlikely he can have a defensive impact so negative it can swallow his offensive impact,
chances are if it gets anywhere even close to doing that it makes a championship impossible for the Nuggets..which as a guy who just love me some Jokic, is precisely what I worry about.
The point of difference here is I was talking to two statements that were expressed as conceptual and seemingly not Seymour specific. And I stated “now I don’t think that is Seymour” of my conceptual player in the first exchange on this particular topic.
So my conception (at least as I envisioned it) was I just need (to justify my position)
A and
Sort of d (but not necessarily) – i.e. I’ve phrased as league average and below average starter or below average player and low-end/below average starter (the latter fitting D, the former not).
And then variations on … but not … c* and e. Doesn’t have to be best team overall, just needs to be the champ. Team doesn’t need to be literally bad at offense, just needs defense to be stronger than offense.
*= If C came from Seymour and one is not defining champs as necessarily the best team (well either way, but more likely to be able to meaningfully engage if the former) … I don’t first glance think they’re better than the Pistons. At least it certainly isn’t a given. Pistons have better SRS and outscore them in the series (going 7). For further context it’s not like Nat’s Conference Final (each only played that one additional round) is much more dominant and that was against a weaker opposition. Would have to look closer at health and what is meant by the question but those two indicators would tilt me towards the Pistons.
On Jokic:
Whilst I'll listen to more complex phrasings I'd struggle to look at a guy that's +20 on-off (and monstrous box-composites) and conclude that because he hasn't happened to have won that he has flaws that make it "impossible". Talking balance of probabilities ... that seems ... unlikely (heck teams have won with DeShawn Stevenson [not playing crazy over his head or anything)] on the fringe of their rotation but Jokic makes it impossible?!).
Not sure how to respond to the first part, but I'll acknowledge that the champ and the best team aren't necessarily the same.
Re: Jokic. To be clear, I'm not saying I'm afraid of Jokic's defense outweighing his offense so much as I'm saying that it will take much less than that to knock them out of the playoffs.
